who will come to my graduation?
when i had moved up from 10th grade to 11th grade, my family had “fought” over who would come to my ceremony. and when i say “fought”, i mean they had passed over the invite.
we were allowed to bring at most 2 guests. so obviously, as a mother-less and father-less 15-year-old kid, i offered it to my grandparents, to which they had passed to my aunt and uncle, to which they passed to my sister.
i don’t recall if my sister had graduated college already, but i will always remember that she went (alongside my uncle, my mother’s brother). i guess i can’t say i was disappointed that it was them who were there, but maybe i was upset that it took so long for them to decide who.
when i heard that only 2 guests would be allowed, i was devastated because i wanted everyone there. it’s not like they had medals to hang around my neck anyway, but i wanted everyone to be there. so to find out that everybody had passed the invite was definitely a wound that needed stitches.
nevertheless, i moved on. come high school graduation, where i had 5 medals and could not wait to get to that damned stage and let whoever would go to my graduation hang them around my neck. but alas, the lockdown followed. but hey, it still happened. at home
but even then, sweeter than ever, because it meant that both my grandparents, my aunt and uncle, and my sister could honor my medals around my white toga.
now? i am about to graduate college very soon (hopefully) but not soon enough. my university has issued a strict policy of two guests per graduate and i think about how my friends would have no problem with this. “two guests? my mom and dad, who else?” and how much jealousy and envy i feel inside when it is a given for them. how every event had been attended by their mother and father, how every awarding, every ceremony, every college acceptance and rejection was honored by their mother and father. and not passed around like my invite had been.
and now, i wonder, more than a year away from my own graduation. who will come? will they finally want to come? will they ask my distant father to come? who will be there once i get my diploma and shake the hand of the university president? who will be in the crowd, holding back tears? who will be taking pictures? and who will be proud?
but then i ask myself, who would i want there with me? if i had only two invites to give and five people to honor. who would i want there with me?
and my answer — through and through — remains the same. who did i want when i had nightmares at age seven? who did i want to tell when i learned how to ride a bike at age twelve? who did i want to see in the crowd when i won my first track & field competition at age sixteen? who did i want to be there when i graduated high school with 5 medals?
and who do i long for when i can no longer handle things at age twenty? my answer — through and through — remains the same.
my mother and my father.
— (but alas, cancer and some… other things had plans for them.)
